His award-winning blogs might no longer be featured on the ATP site, and his tweets may have begun resembling “One Man’s War Against the Establishment”, but Dmitry Tursunov can still look lovely and be funny when rifling through a tennis bag on some lush-looking green grass.

The folks from Wilson have posted a Bag Check which frankly I’m beyond curious when it was filmed. Doesn’t seem to be all that recent to me. It’s supposed to be uncut. If I was a journalist, I’d find out when the original was posted. But as a blogger, I’m happy to just sit back and watch. *lalala*. Oh look, isn’t he pretty?

“That’s all my prizemoney for the year.” Actually, I take that back. How well do challengers pay these days?

See you soon, Dima. I’m still watching you sweat it out in first-round five setters on the back courts, so, you know, it’d be nice doing the same in a third-rounder.

Like this:

Contrary to popular opinion, a grand slam is often less about tennis watching than tennis hopping. As the previous post’s account of my morning will attest, there’s too much awesome. Too much awesome, everywhere. From players practicing to bands playing, TV and radio roaming around and giveaways and games all over the shop, the distractions are endless and it’s impossible to even bother sitting still.

So you do a little bit of the roaming, stopping by matches, hanging outside practice courts, and sitting in the sunshine with a beer.

Until a real favourite comes along, and it’s time for DEAR. Drop everything and run.

Which is what I did when Court 13 favourite Dmitry Tursunov was scheduled on Court 18 in his first round match, up against another favourite of ours, Viktor Troicki. It’s a toughie in this situation, but as always, Dima won out. L saved us seats and I managed to tear myself away from Albert “if he fixed his teeth he’d be hot” Montanes and Dustin “no longer a Jamaican” Brown to harness all aspects of Russian, American and recently, Melburnian pride to help a dude out. Dmitry, that is.

We watched him for a long time. I may have even avoided tweeting and avoided photographing.

Just watched.

There’s nothing like a quiet afternoon match to break up the hecticness of the first few days of a grand slam. Instead of racing from match to match, you’re sitting in a quiet corner, basking in the breeze and sipping your beer. That’s how I’ve always imagined it, in the months that stretch from slam to slam, but this year I had chilly winds, sporadic raindrops, a bizarrely-placed baby carriage in front of me, and an irritating Serbian army to mar, if not completely ruin my buzz.

Never mind. Dmitry was there to pick it back up again.

Viktor’s post Davis-Cup headshave has grown in a little, giving him a little less of a serial killer look. Team Serbia teammate Nenad Zimonjic was in the audience to support him too.

L ditched me several times to peruse the practice courts to no avail. Apparently people preferred to wait for 40 minutes and stare at an empty court, though.

Viktor took a nasty tumble and needed an MTO.

We made signs out of our Optus signs.

And I finally elicited a few more cheers for Dmitry from the crowd. That’s progress, methinks.

For some brief history on the Tursunov cheersquad, it began many years before my tennis reincarnation (aka in the period between fandom phase 1 and obsession phase 68), when M & L supported Dmitry (the shared Russian heritage, the blogs, what more?) even being the lucky recipient to some poetic efforts from the man. I proudly shunned their back court efforts, until one sunny January afternoon in 2009, when after nursing a Heineken and listening to sunset sounds (country music that evening, my favourite) I was ready for some tennis and sought out my sisters. I meandered over to Court 13, yes, the Court 13 this blog is named after, and watched my sisters and associated audience members teach one another creative and inventive cheers utilising all the Russian words in our vocabulary.

Dima may not have won the match (sob) but we most definitely won. Not only did we make some new friends (shoutout, as we are still friends to this day) but the Dima cheersquad flame had been kindled and will never die. As in, five sets under the hot hot sun in Flushing Meadows, never die. As in, doubles in round one as an exception to the rule, never die.

Share this:

Like this:

Once upon a time, when man was first created, G-d gave them bodies, and fingers, and toes, and arms, and legs. The bones were covered in skin, and muscles, and sinews, and all kinds of other important things that helped man do what he does best.

But there was a rule to having bones, and skin, and sinews, and muscles and other stuff. That rule was that you needed to look after this body of yours, and if you wore it out too much – it would start to break.

Your muscles could tear, your bones could break, your skin could blister and bruise, and worst of all, if you used them too much, your tendons could seize up and give you that dread itis.

Which was all well and good if you were a farmer and needed to look after your land, cos the nice man next door might hop over and take over. Or if you were a hunter gatherer, because you could stay home in your cave and get tended too by the ladies while your next door neanderthal brought home the beef.

But if you were the champion javelin thrower, or gladiator, or fencer, you were in a spot of bother, because it meant time off your beloved sport, and thousands of disappointed fans who’d fill the ampitheatre only to discover it was that second rate dude again instead of the drawcard.

And so it is in that modern game we like to call tennis. With an increasingly harsh and demanding season, the complaints against which grow stronger every day, we’re losing our best men, and the fans are crying out in frustration. You heard the guys like Andy Roddick and Rafa whinge about it in nearly every presser, and rightfully so – and you hear the good folks of the tennis loving universe moan in frustration over the buzz of the Twitterverse.

Bring us back our men, we shout! Let them fight the good fight, and prevail! Heal their aching wounds and repair their damaged flesh. Let them once again take to the courts of Gay Paris, or Olde England, or even just Grandma’s crappy overgrown grass court out the backyard. Let them play, let them show us the love, because for heaven’s sakes we miss them.

There’s my boy Juan Martin. Update from @TennisReporters today is that he may need wrist surgery and could be suffering panic attacks.

(Pics copyright by @mooshime, Aami Classic 2010)

Lovely Tommy, who took the time to get engaged, get naturalised, but not to get that new hip working the way it should.

My favourite Russian, who endeared us with his adorable pressers and then left us hanging. Guess Irina’s happy he’s around more.

Tiny pic, but that’s how he looked the last time I saw him. Losing 12 games in a row to Fed. In full chokage mode at the time. Dude, I don’t care if you keep choking, just come back to me!

Oh and honorable mention to Dima. Fix your feet, defend Eastbourne and try to stick around the top, say, 500? Otherwise professional cocktail making and DJing might be your bread and better.